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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289889">To Dwell on Dreams</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder'>bluebeholder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Betrayal, Enemy Lovers, F/M, Fade Dreams, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Sad Ending, Tragic Romance, just heavy topics, no death no smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:55:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two sworn enemies meet in the Fade and make a truce, for just one night. After years of endless opposition, both of them are tired. They hope to find rest in each other's arms. </p>
<p>But a wolf and a dragon cannot change their nature.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Adaar/Solas (Dragon Age)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>To Dwell on Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A concept of where my beloved Adaar Inquisitor might end up after Trespasser. Rather than leaving the Inquisition and engaging in a shadow war with Solas, she declares the Inquisition a permanently independent force, tells the world that the Dread Wolf is among them, and sets herself up in open opposition to him.</p>
<p>This after they, you know. Spent a lot of time deeply in love. </p>
<p>So this fic explores that enemy/lover relationship and how that plays out, in a very, very dark world.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Fen’Harel looks around at the walls of Skyhold’s courtyard, at the summer sun shining on the garden and the empty windows. “You have become quite adept at manipulating the Fade.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I had good teachers,” Kubide says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is her place, a mental fortress. A tactic taught by a Tevinter Dreamer who had advised that safety in exploring the Fade required a fallback position. A place of defense where the ebb and flow of energy and spirits will break against solid walls. A place of solitude.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>horrified</span>
  </em>
  <span> that Kubide built her mental fortress with a door whose key was in another’s hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I always knew you were skilled in the arts of the mind,” Fen’Harel says. There’s a note of pride in his voice. “This is a technique that many </span>
  <em>
    <span>mages</span>
  </em>
  <span> struggle with. The true master, of course, carries such barriers within their own spirit—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Solas,” Kubide says, cutting him off, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>stop it</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stops. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In his armor, his dark clothes and white wolf pelt, he looks cold and cruel. The extra eyes on his cheeks and forehead, shining eerie blue, make him look unreal. “As you wish, Ataashi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide just looks at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She knows how she appears. Not the person she sees in the mirror, with glowing eyes and scales and fangs. No, in this dream she’s just a woman. With yellow eyes and freckles and only slightly pointed teeth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’s been a dragon, of course, a true dragon with wings and claws hunting him through deserts and mountains where even the Dread Wolf can’t hide. She’s been a hunter on horseback, a warrior with a sword. Once he caught her out and she saw herself through his eyes, a creature with the head and wings of a dragon and the body of a woman. Tonight...Kubide can’t stomach any of the games.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is this a </span>
  <em>
    <span>truce</span>
  </em>
  <span>? From the great Inquisitor herself? I am grateful you have called off the hounds.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The tone of biting mockery burns like a arrow to the shoulder. Normally she’d push back, respond in kind, but tonight...”I don’t know,” Kubide says. She sighs and pushes her loose hair back from her face. “I just know I don’t feel like fighting you tonight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A long silence, save the scream of cicadas that have never lived in Skyhold except in this dream.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you don’t like it, I won’t keep you,” she says, looking away. “We meet often enough that I thought, eventually...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How many nights have you waited here?” His voice is still hard, but there’s an edge to it. She’d call it worried, if she had to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A fortnight’s worth?” Kubide hazards. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A sharp intake of breath. No need to breathe in dreams—that’s deliberate. Or, perhaps, an oversight. “Leaving your mind open? Reckless, even by your impossibly high standard. Lucid dreams are dangerous enough even </span>
  <em>
    <span>without</span>
  </em>
  <span>—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide laughs aloud. She can’t help it. That familiar chastisement, which she hasn’t heard in so long. “It’s only open for you,” she says. “Just you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Frozen silence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Clouds skate across the sky, gathering in fog that rolls over the peaks of the mountains and the walls of Skyhold. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You knew I would come.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I suspected.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could have laid a trap.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her teeth nearly cut through her lip with biting it to keep silent. It takes a moment for Kubide to reply: “I could have.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yet you did not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide rubs her face with one hand. “I just wanted to see you,” she says. “Just us. The way...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We cannot go back to how it was.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And there’s that gentleness, that knowing voice of experience and wisdom that broke her damned heart. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I know</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Kubide shouts, voice echoing. She quiets again. “I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s just Solas, then. A plain man in a shabby vest and worn leggings and a knitted tunic, all but barefoot, with half a dragon’s tooth hanging from a leather strip around his neck. Silent. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her voice cracks when she speaks. “If you wanted me to hate you, you wouldn’t wear that, kadan.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas touches the tooth. “I never stopped,” he says quietly. “I have heard you still wear my favor into battle. Am I wrong?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He joins her, sitting on the grass beside her. Flakes of snow fall without freezing the flowers. “You understand my suspicions.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d feel the same.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a moment she takes his hand in hers.  Just as she remembers: long, thin, callused from holding a staff. Without a word, he laces his fingers with hers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She doesn’t know what to say. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have found,” Solas says eventually, “a tea that does not disgust me. A variety from northern Antiva. More delicate than the stuff from Orlais.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The topic is so banal that Kubide can’t help a slightly tearful laugh. “A minor miracle.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It is bearable,” he says, half smiling. “I believe you should return the favor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>finally </span>
  </em>
  <span>won at Quadrille against Florianne,” Kubide says. “Only took me three years to sort it out. Of course, now it’s out of style.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A victory is a victory.” Solas shrugs. “You have never been good at cards.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I have </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Kubide says with deep feeling. “I didn’t even get to gloat, because it would be bad form. I wish that manners were less of an issue in my life.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas lifts her hand and kisses the back of it. “Be sure that you have been terribly unmannerly with me. I have never seen you in a scarlet coat while on my trail, which I have observed as the correct mode of dress for an excellent hunter in any part of the south.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll correct that,” Kubide says. Wondering if he’ll run, she rests her palm on his cheek. “Scarlet coat, so you can see me coming a mile off.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I always wait for you,” Solas says, leaning in her touch. “I would not leave you to wander the Fade alone, vhenan.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide brushes a thumb over his cheekbone. There’s a starved look to his already ascetic face that she doesn’t like. “Why not? If you could evade me without trying...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas seems to be searching her face for something. “I would never see you without the chase,” he says. “I think you would learn to seek me out...but, either way, I accept that I will see you only in dreams of fire and blood.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She doesn’t, can’t, apologize. He won’t change his mind now. “I keep following so I can see you,” she admits instead. “Even if it’s from far away.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Neither of them need to say the truth. Outside this dream, their war can’t be forgotten. He is still working toward his apocalyptic end. She cannot let him achieve it. So he runs ahead and she follows behind. Lately he is not merely running, but fleeing. The gap is closing day by day, and she has traps laid in his path. Soon they’ll have to meet on the field, face to face, and there...there, they’ll only be enemies.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Kubide doesn’t resist when Solas kisses her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His arms go around her neck and she pulls him into her lap, holding him tight. Where he can’t vanish or run. Not that he’s trying—he kisses like he will never move away. The familiarity of it burns. It’s been so long and yet Kubide still knows exactly the turn of a head to make him gasp, and Solas remembers that she shivers when he touches the base of her horns. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The weaknesses they keep from sight of their followers—Solas’ loneliness, Kubide’s sympathy—are no secret from one another. How many times has Kubide killed some poor fool who tried to stand close to the Dread Wolf, isolating him? How many times has Solas created crises where any action will let innocents die, paralyzing the Inquisition?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> each other. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That is the hunt, the battle, the kill, the kiss. Their playing field is level—every advantage and disadvantage matched. Neither, yet, can win.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Would that we did not have to wake up, vhenan,” Solas says, pressing his forehead to hers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide tries to memorize this: the deceptively fragile weight of him, the shine in his eyes. “My door is always open,” she whispers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound of shattering glass.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Real,</span>
  </em>
  <span> not a dream’s sound. Solas jerks back, staring at her. “A trap.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Kubide says quietly. She helps him to his feet, unable to make herself let go of his hand. He doesn’t try to pull away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Clever,” he says, equally quiet. “Was </span>
  <em>
    <span>any </span>
  </em>
  <span>of this real?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you have to ask?” Kubide asks, feeling tears on her face. Real tears, not dream tears. She bends down and kisses him again, hard. Solas stretches up to meet her, one hand in her hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When they separate, he is the Dread Wolf again. Kubide straightens as the snow falls harder and steps back. “They broke the eluvian leading into your bolt-hole.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“From the inside?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. I recommend getting out by the back door. We couldn’t find that one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fen’Harel smiles, sharp. “One more question—I’m very curious, how do you know how to navigate the network?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide smiles in return, setting aside any thoughts of Merrill. “I’ll leave that up to you to work out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bows. “Well done, Ataashi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A crash shakes the dream walls of Skyhold. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s your front door,” Kubide says. “Time to wake up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Until next time, vhenan,” Fen’Harel says quietly. He touches his chest briefly, over the spot where the dragon’s tooth sits.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns and vanishes into the driving snow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide wakes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did it work?” Alexius demands as she sits up, rubbing her eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The eluvian breaking woke him up,” she says. “He’s got a back door, but he’ll be running on foot for a while. Kaariss is smart, he’ll find anything the Dread Wolf forgets.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He is too clever to leave much,” Florianne says. “He gave you no hints?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“None,” Kubide says, standing up. She begins braiding her hair back. “So we move forward with the original plan. Send ravens to the agents in the Highever and Ansburg alienages.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They have defectors from the cause waiting in both places, who will explain—completely truthfully—that the Dread Wolf’s plan will do nothing for city elves but destroy them. Kubide does not anticipate this to go over universally well, but that’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>point</span>
  </em>
  <span>. By the time Fen’Harel surfaces again, half the alienages in the south will be fighting themselves. He’ll have no chance to recruit from them until things settle down, by which time the Inquisition will have planted its own agents within the ranks of future faithful. Of course, Fen’Harel is far too clever to be taken in on that account. He’ll have something ready, and Kubide will have to match him when he makes his move. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will send them,” Florianne says, exiting quickly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Alexius lingers. “You wept in your sleep, Inquisitor,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It is difficult to see him,” she says softly, looking out the window at the howling snow. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she doesn’t say any more, he sighs. “I am sorry for your loss.” The door shuts behind him as he leaves, giving her a moment of privacy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kubide pulls a long, faded, bloodstained blue ribbon from her pocket. A gift from very long ago, in happier times. A favor to a knight, given half in sincerity and half as a joke. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You would show the world the Inquisitor is your champion? </span>
  </em>
  <span>she’d teased. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, </span>
  </em>
  <span>came the reply. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She ties her hair back with it, the favor of the Dread Wolf. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And wonders, as she turns her thoughts to what comes next, if he will be wearing her gift when she kills him. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, Kubide kept Florianne and Alexius around. They're very smart, resourceful, and useful people—and when everyone else up and leaves, well. A ruler needs support.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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